Boffins from Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and ETH in Zurich have bypassed memory chip defenses to execute a successful browser-based Rowhammer side-channel attack dubbed SMASH.
Rowhammer refers to a technique that computer security researchers began to explore around 2014: "hammering" RAM chips with a series of rapid write operations. This process abuses the electronics enough to flip stored bits, potentially introducing errors that can be exploited for further gain.
Initially, Rowhammer attacks had to be conducted locally, though by 2016 [PDF], the technique had been refined to work remotely using JavaScript in, say, a web browser.
Memory specifications introduced in 2014 added optional support for a mitigation called Target Row Refresh (TRR), a DRAM command available to memory controllers to refresh memory cell ..
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